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Short and tall people may be at an increased risk of arthritis compared to individuals of an average height, research has suggested.

A new genetic connection between human height and arthritis has been established, American scientists claim, following analysis of tens of thousands of genomes.

According to the University of Michigan school of public health, both extremes of height are associated with osteoarthritis - the most common form of arthritis.

Researchers arrived at their findings by analysing the genomes of more than 35,000 people in the US and Europe.

They found shorter bones with less cartilage made joints most susceptible to damage, while longer and heavier bones produced greater levels of damaging stress to joints.

Study co-author Goncalo Abecasis, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, said many genes were already known to control height, but only a few were associated with osteoarthritis.

'In this case the gene we picked also is important in osteoarthritis and it's actually quite hard to find genes for osteoarthritis,' he explained.

'One of the things we were excited about is you could study [height] in many people, and once you've done that you have a short list of genes that you can then study for what they do in terms of osteoarthritis.'

The study's results were published today in the journal Nature Genetics.